Visions Festival // Timings

What stage? And when? Those are the burning questions about this year’s VISIONS festival as it heads to London Fields on Saturday August 5th. And with less than two weeks to go it’s time to get serious.

But first… are the type of rapacious music fan that is all about the festival’s infamous dog show? Or have the burning need to see Happyness play beer pong? If so, you’re in luck. To make the dog show you’ll need your four-legged friend into its best David Bowie outfit by noon at the Church of St John-at-Hackney. While Happyness kick off the beer pong tournament at the Space Studios Courtyard at 3pm.

If you’re the type of salacious music fan that actually would like to listen to music at a festival we’ve got all the action in one handy little VISIONS graphic – just see below.

And that schedule should reveal just how tough the decisions will be to make on game day. If you want to see yours truly, I’ll likely be beer ponging between the deliriously unhinged acts confined safely to the underground bunker of Mangle and the back-to-back all-female North American showdown between techno ace Marie Davidson and the kinetic verbal fireworks of Moor Mother at London Brewhouse.

These two stages encapsulate the VISIONS ethos the best – loud and weird. And to be frank, a bit perverse. I bet the local council would be petrified to find that Detroit noiseniks and pranksters Wolf Eyes will be let loose at Mangle during daylight hours. Only to be followed by The Men, Shame, Blanck Mass and Liars, who headline at 9.15pm. Earplugs? Tick. Sanity? Nae bother.

Over at the Brewhouse things will again be sonically unhinged as it welcomes its headliner Zebra Katz straight from New York to what will surely be the hottest stage – literally and figuratively – at VISIONS. And expect his Brooklyn peer and experimental Latin electro artist Helado Negro to bring his own slice of the Big Apple glamour, with Benny Mails, Denzel Himself and Baba Ali rounding out the audacious stage.

Over at Oval Space it’s women who will rule. And in some all-star style, I might add, by collecting some of the hottest singers and songwriters on Earth in Norways’s Jenny Hval, New York’s Frankie Cosmos and Israel’s Noga Erez. Their sets will be punctuated by badass London favourites Ider, Sarah Midori Perry fronting Kero Kero Bonito, and mega headliner Sophie at 10pm.

Which leaves the smaller, if perfectly formed, spaces of basement venue Sebright Arms and loft bar NT’s to supply the gleeful noise of Soccer Mommy, Amber Arcades, Matt Maltese and Night Flowers – to name but a few. Headliners are Happyness (9.30pm) and Cosmo Pyke (9.15pm), respectively.